Is Canadian music ailing from an "aw shucks" attitude? Diamond Rings thought so. The electro-pop singer-songwriter talks Junos and his next level new album.

“I’ve always thought if I'm up there on stage and people are standing watching me in a dark, windowless room, buying expensive drinks, that I might as well act like I give a sh*t and I want to be there. I want to put on a show.”

John O’Regan laughs over the phone as he says this. He’s talking about what leads a University of Guelph graduate and former indie rocker to teach himself GarageBand, throw on some eye-shadow and Value Village acid wash and reinvent himself as Diamond Rings -- an electro-pop singer-songwriter who now finds himself up for a Best New Artist Juno.

In 2011, the 26-year-old “put on a show” 110 times -- which included his stint supporting pop idol Robyn on her North American tour. His songs alone deserve attention (diary entries drawled out in O’Regan’s buzzing baritone). His spandex wardrobe and spastic dancing demand it.

And, explains the musician: “The one reason that I -- that Diamond Rings exists -- is just this desire to create something that admitted to wanting to be seen and heard. I think a lot of the music that's made, people sort of pretend that they don't want that.”

In O’Regan’s opinion, that statement especially applies to anyone operating north of the 49th parallel.

“Having that courage to take it that extra step and really go for it, I feel has been lacking from Canadian music for a long time. There's this sort of ‘aw shucks’ mentality,” he says, “groups of boys standing around in a circle hiding behind their hair playing a bunch of guitars,” he explains, “or people sort of mumbling through their lyrics with their heads down.” That whole schtick is the antithesis of what O’Regan wanted to do with Diamond Rings. And even if he does find it quintessentially Canadian, Diamond Rings’ upcoming trip to the Junos isn’t threatening to be a journey into Can-Con hell.

O’Regan may be the only Best New Artist nominee to inspire YouTube make-up tutorials, but the Canadian music landscape isn’t the same as when he started Diamond Rings -- even if that was only four years ago. He’s a big fan of fellow nominee Drake, for instance. (Last year’s Juno host, the Toronto rapper doesn’t need an introduction -- a fact you could hardly classify as “aw shucks.”) In O’Regan’s opinion, Drake’s worldwide acclaim could be a sign of a bolder era in Canadian music. “I’m just excited that there are artists from Canada who are really kind of owning it on a world stage and are sort of unabashedly owning who they are,” he says.

“I guess it just feels like there’s a change and that there’s a change happening,” he continues, “and if I can be a part of that, even in a small way, that’d be really great.”

At the moment, though, he’s just hoping he can create something worthy of the zeitgeist -- and, he’s excited to reveal, a follow-up to 2010’s Special Affections is already “basically done.” (Expect the as-yet-untitled album to arrive by fall 2012.)

“The first album is about wondering or questioning whether or not I can be a musician. I feel like Special Affections is me talking myself through the process of making this record in a way,” he says. “And I can say the new stuff is simply a lot more about owning it.”

O’Regan partnered with Damian Taylor to make the disc, a Montreal-based producer who’s been behind albums by Bjork (Vespertine, Biophilia) -- and, more importantly to O’Regan, records by his Toronto friends Austra (the Juno-nominated Feel it Break) and Trust (TRST). “It’s a jump, it’s a big jump. Kind of a full step, and I wasn’t even expecting to make that leap,” O’Regan says of the new disc’s refined electronic sounds. “It’s really what I was striving for on the last record but it just couldn’t be, you know, because of my own limitations as a sonic compositor.” (For Special Affections, O’Regan taught himself GarageBand so that he could create the record’s rough, bedroom-produced beats.)

“Here, I’m working with someone who has a real solid control and a real solid understanding of the science behind the music,” he says of Taylor. “At a certain point electronic music is very much science as much as an art, and as someone who barely scraped through Grade 11 physics, my eyes begin to glaze over as soon as there’s any talk of frequencies and hertz and decibels,” he chuckles. “I’m more into understanding and chasing after a certain feeling and understanding through each song.”

Expect the first taste of “next step” Diamond Rings soon, as O’Regan plans to release a video and single by the beginning of summer.

“It’s a really positive record. I just wanted to make something that could hopefuly be uplifting and inspiring, cause that’s how I was feeling, I was feeling inspired. I’d worked really hard to do this thing -- and having it work? How often does that happen for an artist? It’s been a good year and hopefully the new material reflects that.”

Diamond Rings is nominated for Best New Artist. The 2012 Juno Awards will be broadcast live from Ottawa Sunday, April 1 on CTV.

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